Chapter 6
I woke in a familiar location: the hospital. I just wasn't used to seeing it from flat on my back. I blinked, recognizing the monitoring equipment on either side of me. I could even see the screens: Heartbeat firm and steady, BP was a bit low. My chest hurt like the blazes. Every breath I took was like a stab through the middle of my chest.
Last I remembered, I'd been the target of an assassination attempt. How had I survived? It seemed unlikely that the Hyuga clan would send an incompetent assassin after me. Was that intended to be just a warning?
Within moments, Tsunade loomed above me.
"Sakura! You're awake, good. We can't heal you without your help."
"What?" My mind must still be a bit fuzzy.
"Somehow, you've become immune to chakra. No, not immune, much worse. Any attempt to push chakra into your body results in a violent reaction. Almost explosive! By rights you should be dead, but instead you're healing and even that's wrong. You're healing faster than you should be able to. Not nearly as quickly as a chakra medic could help you, but it's disturbingly fast."
I worked at making my eyes focus. "How did I get here?"
"You didn't show up at your training site this morning. Lee and Hinata got worried and you're just damned lucky that Hinata is such an expert tracker. It took her a while, but she located you near a stream and waterfall. Then Lee carried you back."
I lay there, hurting, but thankful for my friends. Hinata must have used the byakugan.
I thought about what had happened. As Ranma, I'd always been a quick healer. But that was because of my huge stores of ki. The waterfall had done its work. I could feel the ki fires glowing, permeating every cell of my body. Once you reach that state, training becomes exponentially more effective. You train ever harder, bruising and wounding yourself in small ways. The weak cells are killed, while the ki inside you heals the damage quickly. And the new cells that come in are ki dynamos – blazing factories of ki energy, and potent engines of ki use. Each cycle of damage and replacement shifts your body into an ever-more-powerful self-improving machine.
That is, if you survive the process.
My body was glowing with ki. That's why I'd survived, and why I was healing. By why couldn't they use chakra healing to speed the process along?
Once the question is asked in the proper way, the answer becomes obvious.
My body was filled with ki. It was practically glowing with ki. Chakra couldn't penetrate. Or – was it even worse than that?
"Tsunade-sama?" I asked.
"I'm here."
"I need to try something…"
"Don't strain yourself!" she ordered. "You're in no shape for that!"
"Important," I got out. "Can you make a chakra scalpel?"
Of course she could. A chakra scalpel is one of the basic exercises of a medic-nin. It's only three centimeters long, projecting from the tip of the index finger. It's a concentrated blade of wind chakra that will make a perfect cut. Depending on their affinity, not every medic-nin can do it, but I could, and I knew Tsunade-sensei could. It's not particularly useful as an attack tool, but it's great at cutting ropes or wires. And it's absolutely perfect for surgery. A really good medic-nin can often bypass the surgical element and work directly inside the patient's body without cutting it open, but sometimes you need to fall back to the basics.
"Wanna try something."
I lifted my right arm, which pulled on chest muscles, which hurt like you wouldn't believe. At the tip of my index finger, I condensed a teeny, tiny orb of ki – no larger than a grain of salt.
"Can you see that?"
"Yes, it's like a glowing speck. Is that ki?"
I nodded. "Try cutting it. Carefully."
Tsunade brought her hand, with the small, transparent blade, close to my hand. The chakra blade moved to touch that glowing speck…
SPARK!
For a moment, the chakra erupted into raw energy. It was all forms at once – lightning, fire, wind, perhaps bits of earth and water as well. I felt it like a small explosion and an explosive burst of flame, all at the same time. My arm jerked back reflexively, as if I'd touched a live wire.
Tsunade-sama swore, sitting on her butt a meter away from me. Her language was impressive. I hadn't heard anything quite so creative since my earliest days as her apprentice.
Seconds later, the door opened and a legion of medics and orderlies streamed in.
"What was that?"
"Hokage – are you alright?"
"There was a massive blip on the monitors!"
Tsunade stood, brushing off her rear, and turned a stern gaze on all of them. "I'm fine. Now get out. I need to talk to the patient in private."
Once the well-meaning medical staff had been shooed out the door, she turned to a corner of the room.
"You, too. I'm classifying the details of what you just saw as an S-rank secret. You can describe it that way in your report, and send your captain to me if he wants details on what and why."
In the corner, an ANBU operative was suddenly visible. Had he always been there and I'd just never noticed? This one wore a monkey mask. I wonder if they swapped masks, to keep the rest of us guessing. With a nod, Monkey-san moved quietly to the door and outside.
"So," Tsunade said, once the room was clear. "I suppose that explains the problems I had when I first developed my strength. It completely messed up my chakra. I had to learn to not use my strength while I was channeling chakra or the results were extremely painful. But what I felt was more of a burn."
"There was no assassin," I realized, a bit belatedly. At Tsunade's puzzled frown, I explained. "I thought I'd been targeted by an assassin – just as Hyuga-sama had warned. But it wasn't an assassin. I tried to mold chakra. I was cold and used a metabolic boost. And … almost killed myself."
"Why does it burn for me, and explode for you?" the Hokage demanded. "What's the difference?"
"I was a ki master," I told her, with no trace of bragging. "Perhaps it's the amount of ki, or how tightly it's held, or the nature of the emotion infused into it. I don't know. But I'll find out."
"We're having trouble with both Sound and Mist," she reminded me.
"I know. I was your assistant last week."
"Something like this – how does it affect a summons? Or genjutsu? Or some of the stronger chakra techniques? This could change everything!"
"I'll find out," I promised. "I need to finish my basic training. Then finish my fight with Neji. Then… investigation."
Tsunade's lips pinched tight. "You aren't going to be entering any fights in your condition. Since we can't heal you—"
"Maybe you can."
Her look was skeptical. "You think I want to blow myself up again? And you can't stand another blast like that."
"You're just testing me now," I told her. "You already said you needed me awake to operate. You're hoping I can pull the excess ki out of my body." She flushed at being seen through so transparently. "Fortunately, I think I can, most of it, anyway. Enough so that I'll look like a normal person. You could work on me then."
My mentor was suspicious. "Are you sure about this, Sakura? I think I'd prefer to let you heal up the normal way. That seems to be happening quickly enough."
I shook my head. "I have things that need doing. If I postpone the fight with Neji, I'm going to look a lot weaker. And the sooner that's over, the sooner I can investigate."
"I don't like it, but I'm willing to try if you are."
"Alright," I decided. "Give me five minutes to get into the trance. I think I can hold it for about three hours. After that, my ki will come flooding in, stronger than before."
"Hold on," she said. "I'll get Hyuga Hinata in to assist. You said she's been studying your chakra flow?"
I nodded, weakly.
"Okay. Give me a few minutes. I'll also want to prep a theater."
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
It was the waterfall exercise, squared.
There are many ki variants for stealth. Happosai had a warp technique that let you step away from the solid world. Oyaji's umisenken was more like a variant of hidden weapons. But one of the simplest and strangely most effective techniques was Doc Tofu's "don't notice me" skill. Pulling together all your ki, you simply squeezed it away into the next world. I'd learned that some of these techniques made you more visible to ghosts and spiritual mediums (which leads to a whole different school of attack and defense techniques), but for normal people you just "dropped off the radar." I'd known a guy named Gosunkugi Hikaru who had done this naturally. A complete non-entity that was constantly being overlooked, despite his outlandish eccentricities. (He tended to wear burning candles strapped to his head.) "Voodoo Gosunkugi" was a non-entity to the living world, but a towering and imposing figure to ghosts. Come to think of it, Doc Tofu used to dance around with a skeleton…
In any case, I squeezed my ki away, nearly every last drop. It gets easier with practice, but for now I had to stay in a fairly strong trance to manage it. I heard snatches of conversation…
"So where's the patient?"
"Right there! On that gurney!"
"Her? She's stable. I have other things to work on…"
"I am the Hokage! Listen to me!"
And so on. Strangely enough, Hinata seemed to have a tougher time seeing me when she activated the byakugan.
Tsunade-sama would have normally used an anesthesia jutsu. In this case she couldn't, because I needed to be mentally alert enough to maintain my trance. I focused tightly enough that the real world faded from my awareness for a while, including the pain of the operation. When I finally began to return, it was much later and I could tell I was back in a recovery room.
I carefully let the ki leak back into my body. Finding myself healed, I cycled the ki back and forth through the area of the injury. The chakra healing had rebuilt most of the damaged tissue, but it wasn't up to the strength and vitality I expected based on my new training. Cycling the ki solved that. I found it a bit like swishing water through my mouth after brushing my teeth. Refreshing and invigorating. After that, I drifted into sleep.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
"I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining," Tsunade-sama griped, "but my patients aren't supposed to heal this fast. It's like the accident never happened."
"Then I'm cleared to continue my training?"
Tsunade stepped to the EKG/BP monitor and studied it, as if it would provide some sudden insight.
"You had your chest blown open. You had a cracked sternum! Do you have any idea how serious that is?"
I nodded, feeling the pillow crinkle at the back of my head. "I had a pretty thorough teacher."
"I'm advising you to postpone the match against Hyuga Neji," she finally told me.
"Any postponement will make me look weak."
"You are weak! Your chest had a hole in it!"
"I think I can handle it." I was nearly as confident as I sounded.
"And I don't like this one bit!" my mentor and instructor shouted at me.
"Do you want to re-negotiate with the Hyuga clan for a postponement?" I asked sweetly.
She returned my gaze with slitted eyes. Generally, Tsunade doesn't do the snake look very well. This time, she was excellent. "You know full well that the Hokage is not allowed to interfere in an inter-clan dispute. Your match is a verbal contract between the powerful Hyuga clan and the as-yet-nonexistent Haruno clan."
"Oh," I said, a touch too naively. "Perhaps you could speak to them merely as my doctor, and not as the Hokage."
She spent another minute glaring at me, checking to see if I would self-combust under her visual bombardment. I didn't.
"Fine then!" She actually threw her hands up in the air. "Fight Neji while you're still recovering from a life-threatening chest wound. Get yourself killed! But don't you dare come crying to me after that, because I won't care!" And with that, she stormed from the room.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
That entire day was lost for training, but fortunately it was just the one day. I was released from the hospital in the late afternoon. By early evening, I found myself a nice clearing just outside the city wall and worked on a kata. I began working through the first Anything Goes beginner's kata.
The core school has three sets of three kata – beginning, intermediate, and advanced. As I said, that's just the core school. I had an opportunity here, since I was the only practitioner of Anything Goes and I hadn't taken any students yet. I had an opportunity to change things and tune them for my own preferences. First I had to work through the originals, and gather my thoughts from over the years.
I forced myself to keep a tight focus on my form. My body was starting to get into shape, but I was built differently than Ranko. Turns and pivots were different, and I needed to incorporate those differences.
I suppose some might consider it odd that my definition of "woefully out of shape" included a fairly competent chunin-level ninja. But it wasn't good enough just to get the kata right. It had to be perfect. Perfect when I moved fast, or slow, or halted and hung there motionless.
How much difference does it make, when there's one wrong note in a sonata? Or one bad brush stroke across the face of a masterpiece? Or when a computer has just one circuit wrong?
I didn't practice my art to be a better soldier, I practiced my art because it was a thing of beauty. When the kata were right, I flowed. I moved and spun and leapt better than any dancer, more powerfully and gracefully than any gymnast. For me, the kata couldn't be just close – I strove for perfection, for art.
Part of that perfection was zanshin – the "mind of no mind." That state of awareness where your focus widens until you see everything, and all senses come together in a perfect clarity. Is that what the byakugan offered? For me, there is an element of almost precognition to it. I saw my opponents, observing their positions and movements. The possibilities unfolded like a tree – the moves they could make, the counters I could perform. At times I could spot a winning point. No matter how they reacted, if I reached that point I would win. But I could only see that while deep in zanshin, entranced by the motion that was my art.
I spent hours there, going through the kata, re-learning those ancient movements until they were engraved into my body. It has been a lifetime and more, but as it has been when I was Ranma, so it remained for Sakura. The kata were sacred and serene, and everything I've always valued most in the world.
And yes, kata worked great with a skirt.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
The next morning I expected to be right back in the groove. I'd only been gone for a day; I had bounced back from the surgery; now it was time to pick up where I'd left off.
Training can be a tricky thing. Sometimes you advance like a weed. Most of the time, you hit a plateau and can't get off it. And sometimes, it's all you can do not to backslide.
This was a "let's not backslide" day. The explosion and surgery and rest had thrown me completely off my stride. For speed we graduated from peas and gravel up to small rocks. There was a ninja training device built to use ammunition like small tennis balls. We'd snagged three of those, and then cranked the speed up to maximum. Lee and Hinata kept the ammo baskets filled with rocks (instead of tennis balls) while I dodged and blocked. Then, just to keep things exciting, Lee would pitch beehives and hornet nests at me.
Only, it wasn't working. There were just too many insects. I'd try swatting them, but then a rock the size of my fist would hit me. Those rocks were big enough and fast enough to break bones or crack a skull.
I buckled down and focused! And I was still getting five or six stings every second
"I can do this!" I shouted. "I know I can!"
Concentrating as fiercely as I could, I opened my eyes to see everything! My hands were like greased lightning, spearing out, slapping, deflecting everything. The hornets hummed, enraged, while Lee dumped another bucket of stones into the hopper and adjusting the aim.
The launchers surrounded me, ensuring that at least one was always at my back. Lee's activity distracted me—
Whack.
Hinata's cannon got me with that one. I turned toward her for a moment…
Whack!
The third cannon got me with one, which hurt a lot more.
Whack. Whack.
And I was still getting stung five or six times every second.
"ARGGGG! Halt!"
I sprinted out of that psychotically insane cloud of suicidal, killer, girl-eating hornets. I had to move surprisingly far away before they'd leave me alone.
"I gotta take a break!" I announced at the top of my lungs. More quietly, "Something's not working. I gotta think about this."
So I sat down to think.
When I'd been Ranma, about the only thing that calmed me down and let me think was doing kata. I'd grown and developed since then, so I'd picked up a few new hobbies.
I worked on sewing my next outfit. Sitting cross-legged on a rock, in the middle of the quarry, I cussed and sewed and thought. After a while, I just sewed, letting my mind drift.
I hadn't gotten much of anywhere when Lee approached.
"May I sit with you, Sakura-san?"
"It's just 'Sakura,' Lee. Yeah, go ahead. I'm not getting anywhere."
He sat down, cross-legged, facing me. Fortunately my skirt was long enough to preserve modesty, even when I was sitting cross-legged.
"Is that leopard-skin?" he wondered.
"Just fake," I said. "On the good side, it should dry quicker than real leopard skin, so I'll be able to use this as a swimsuit, as well as a training outfit."
"Your don't have to get a new swimsuit," he said. "The pink one was… very nice."
"This'll be better," I promised. "See, it's got the same bikini bottom, but when I'm wearing it, it'll look like a really teeny, ragged skirt. And the top only goes over the left shoulder, and is make to look deliberately ragged. It'll have that whole 'Tarzan Girl' look, particularly if I wear a single kunai at my hip. I plan to do the run barefoot today. My feet are tough enough, and I'm ready for some extra impact down there."
He thought about that. "What is a 'Tarzan Girl'?"
"You'll see!" Then I had a second thought. "Uh, Lee…?"
"Yes?" That boy has the 'intense' look down pat.
"I… um… I don't want you to take this training the wrong way. You aren't, are you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I…" I gulped. "I'm doing this training so that I can go out and drag Sasuke back. You know that, right?"
His expression didn't seem to change, but there was a mood rolling off him that was almost painful.
"Yes," he finally admitted, "I suppose I did know that."
I concentrated on sewing for a moment, unable to meet his eye.
"I've never told this to anyone but Naruto," I finally said. "I caught Sasuke the night he left. The night he went to join Orochimaru. I confessed my love. I offered him anything he wanted, if he'd just stay. Even… myself."
Lee blinked, looking absolutely serious, but he didn't say a word.
"He knocked me out. When I woke, he was gone. I found Naruto and begged him to go after Sasuke, to bring Sasuke back. And Naruto did it. He – I know he had feelings for me, and I know I was playing on those feelings." I felt the tears coming out. "I used him. I know that! And… he heals really fast, but from the sound of the guys that brought him back, he almost died. For me. Trying to bring back his rival, just as a favor to me."
After a moment, Lee decided, "Naruto is a very good person. I'm proud to know him."
I wasn't done. "That's why I owe Naruto so much. That's why I'm trying to help with this thing with Hinata. If there's even a chance I could help Naruto…"
Lee digested this with no change to his patient façade. Finally, he dared to ask, "If you feel that way, did you ever wonder if Sasuke deserved you? Maybe there is someone else more worthy of your love. Someone who would care for you more, and treat you better."
I sighed, unable to lift my head from my sewing. "Yeah, you're hardly the first person to make that point. But we don't always have a choice about who we give our heart to, do we?"
There was a quiet reply from the boy across from me. "No."
"Look," I said, rallying, "I don't know how much you know about the Uchiha clan. I was Tsunade's assistant, and I took the opportunity to look up the whole story. The highlights are that that Sasuke had an older brother, Itachi, whom he absolutely worshipped. And Itachi seemed like the perfect ninja – unbelievably skilled, promoted at record young ages, incredible success on missions, all of that. Then, one day when Sasuke was seven years old, Itachi went insane. He butchered the entire clan, leaving his little brother as the only witness and sole survivor. Sasuke watched his parents, cousins, everyone in his family sliced up and killed by the older brother that he idolized.
"From that day forward, he vowed to bring Itachi to justice – to punish the man that had slain his family and clan. And the danger is unbelievable! To get Itachi he's got to go through Orochimaru and even worse! I… I couldn't help him on that quest so he made sure I was safe, back here in Konoha. But if there's anything I can do to help him, I have to! Don't you see?"
I finally dared to look up. His face didn't show any of the hurt or disappointment that I'd expected, just a fixed look of dedication.
"I believe you, Sakura-san. I'll do whatever I can to help you."
"Oh, crap!" I muttered to myself. He was determined to be a martyr, wasn't he?
"Okay, once more from the top," I said. "Naruto's a great guy, right? I don't love him, but I sure as hell owe him."
Lee nodded.
"Sasuke's ruthless and driven, he'll do anything to stop his brother. I think he's really protecting us all, but there are a lot of people who are very upset by what he's done. He's officially listed as an S-class missing nin, and aiding him is a crime."
Lee was a bit more hesitant, but nodded finally.
"And then there's me," I finished. "I would break the law in a second, to help Sasuke-kun. I would use Naruto again, in a second, brutally exploiting any feelings he had for me, just to help my love, the criminal. What I'm saying, Lee, is that sometimes I use my friends. I know it's wrong! I'm sorry, I'm really sorry… but I won't stop. In some ways, I'm not a nice person. Not a nice person at all. But…" I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep the tears from flowing. "…if there's a chance that I can help Sasuke-kun…"
There was one way to stop me from going too far. "Talk to Hinata about this. Tell her everything. Discuss me with her. She'll do a better job of making sure that I don't take advantage of you.
"I'm just trying to tell you not to take any of this training the wrong way. I don't mean to be flirting with you, or coming on to you or anything. If you're looking for romance, you shouldn't be wasting your time with me! There's prettier girls out there who would be a lot more appreciative of the village's best fighter since Maito Gai."
He shook his head firmly. "That's not true, Sakura-san."
I gave a wry smile. "It is true, Lee. There are girls out there who appreciate you. If you gave them half a chance, they'd give you the affection you deserve."
He shrugged. "It's not true that there are prettier girls out there. Sakura-san… you're beautiful!"
That struck me like an extra rock to the head. Sure, I've got nice hair, but right then it looked like a bird's nest. I was sweaty, sitting on a rock, and between the mornings rock hits and all the stings, I had welts on top of welts on top of welts. I was sure my face was ghastly – only useful for frightening young children.
Well, I'd done my best. I didn't have the heart to trample his feelings any further, so I changed the subject.
"Can we talk about training?"
"If you wish."
"What do you do when you hit The Wall?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"You know," I insisted. "You're training, and there's that place where you just can't give any more. You know that if you could only push a little harder, force yourself to move a little faster or lift a little more, then you could make a major breakthrough. But instead, you run face first into The Wall. And you're stuck there. What do you do?"
He nodded. "Oh, that. I force myself through it. I make it so that it would be even more painful if I don't get through the wall. So if 'the wall' is doing another fifty sit-ups, for example, I tell myself that if I don't do that, then I'll have to run laps around the entire city fifty times, perhaps. And then I stick to that promise."
I just gaped at him. "That's … utterly insane. That's even more insane than my father's methods!"
"Your father?"
I laughed uncomfortably, reaching around to scratch the back of my head. "Previous life, I mean."
"The wolves and marinade sauce was his idea?" Lee guessed.
"Yeah. Actually he tied raw steak to my body. I think the sauce is cheaper and more effective. And he rode on top of me in a couch. But yeah, that's how he pushed me past the wall. That and insults. Between fear and rage, I never even noticed the wall. He was actually pretty good at that."
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
With my sewing done and my mind calmed, for the moment, we decided to switch up and do some free weights. I was starting to get a little strength. I was typically curling 200 kg, one-handed, but doing a lot of repetitions. I needed that breakthrough to move up to real strength. I finished the set of exercises, then racked the weights.
"Lee? Hinata? You think maybe we could do the run now, and do lunch a little late?"
With his typically serious expression, Lee nodded tightly. "If that's what you want, Sakura-san."
Hinata put down the pestle. "You should check to see if I mixed this correctly."
I sampled the mixture, feeling the texture and also judging through scent and a tiny taste.
"That's perfect, Hinata."
"Do you have more marinade?" the shy girl asked.
"Not today," I decided. "I don't think the wolves will be fast enough, even though I'm shifting up to heavier weights. I want you and Lee to double-team me and go for wounds that really hurt. I need to kick the adrenaline up."
"But, Sakura-san," Lee protested, "you said your chakra was blocked, so how could you heal—?"
"I've been thinking about that."
I pulled back my left sleeve and summoned a chakra scalpel at my right index finger. Medic-nins have to train until they can form one almost instantly, even without seals. I used it to cut a thin line down the inside of my forearm.
"My problem before was that I was molding chakra inside my body. Of course, that's not the way we start out, is it? As kids, everyone first learns to mold outside the body. Physical energy in the right hand, spiritual in the left, then you mold as you make seals, molding and knotting it at the same time."
They both nodded.
"And within a year, everyone (except for maybe a dead-last student) is molding inside the body, and just channeling finished chakra into the seal. It's harder to detect, and faster, and you don't look like some inexperienced kid. Right?"
Lee moped a little. "Except I could never get any energy at all – either physical or spiritual."
"So if I pull both physical and spiritual energy out of my body, and only mold it into chakra outside…"
I went through the seals with my right hand. The really powerful healings require both hands, but I should be able to manage this with a lesser wound closing effect. I carefully grasped the two energies with my fingertips, squeezing them together as I weaved them into a knot, as I passed through the signs.
"…then bingo!"
As I passed my hand down my left forearm, the small gash pulled closed again, showing unblemished skin.
"See?"
I displayed my forearm for both teammates.
Hinata looked unconvinced. "I do not like the idea of trying to hurt our only medic."
"You can do first aid, right? And the village is only a couple of kilometers. Besides, if I'm going to be a good medic, I need the evasion training. And if I'm going to win against Neji, I need the pressure to break past this wall. You both have to scare me, which means we need to get serious."
Hinata's under-confident mood was bringing me down. I needed a psychological boost.
"You agree?" I asked again. "The course is out to the old temple, then back to the lake. I'm free and clear when I hit the water, and I get a sixty-second pass after hitting the temple obelisk."
They spent a moment getting their gear ready for the chase.
"Lee, could you turn around for a second?" I asked.
"Why?"
As his back turned, I called out, "Special technique: quick change!"
This had been perfected and used by many of the Jusenkyo curse victims I'd known. It's how Oyaji, Ryoga, and Mousse were able to transform and appear fully clothed. Shampoo never seemed to use it, preferring to remain naked as she clung to me. I'd known the dressing technique, but didn't get to use it often, due to someone clinging to me (for example, Shampoo).
Now I used it to switch out of my blouse-skirt combo into the Tarzan-girl ragged fur halter and micro-skirt. By the time Lee finished his spin, I was adjusting the fur bands at my wrists and ankles. They held the weights. I still wasn't up to Lee's load, but I was closing the gap.
Lee paused and stared. "Sakura-san, you look so… wild!" Clenching both fists he began to shout as he shook his head theatrically, "Oh, Gai-sensei! How you would weep to see your poor student, almost consumed from within by the blazing fire of his young heart!"
"Lee-san?" Hinata asked sweetly, while grinding her teeth, "Could you wait for us over there, on that far rock? I need to talk to Sakura-san for a moment."
"Yes! Oh, yes how I will wait!" The green grasshopper of Konoha bounded away.
Still grinding her teeth, Hinata approached and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Uh, nice grip, Hinata."
"I thought you were done flirting with Lee-san! That's not very nice, you know!"
"I talked to him this morning," I said, in my own defense. "I explained about Sasuke and my feelings and everything! I swear, it just bounced right off!"
"So now it's okay to taunt him with that… outfit?"
I thought about how to explain it. "It's not for him, it's for me. I'm trying to move past my current plateau. To do that, I need everything I can get pushing in the right direction. Dressed like this, and I admit, with the warmth of Lee's reaction, I'm feel pretty good about myself. Confident, aggressive, powerful. I'm not sure if I could handle it if anyone else saw me wearing this, but it's different with just you and Lee. Can you understand, Hinata?"
A Hinata frown was like an enraged scowl on another person. "…Perhaps. I don't have to like it, though."
"Then channel your irritation into aggression," I suggested. "Cut me with your kunai. Make me scared. Make me work for this!"
After a moment, she nodded.
Unable to leave well enough alone, I added melodically, "Help me out and I'll make an outfit like this for you."
That got her already-large eyes to pop a little wider. "I could never…!"
"Naruto gets back in a couple of months." I almost sang it to her. "Maybe you and I both dress like this. You could do it if you weren't the only girl, right? And we have another little training session in the woods, like this one? Naruto's back, only he's grown, and he's even faster and stronger… And maybe, during one jump, you slip. When he's just coming up below you. You fall, and he'd have to catch you. His strong arms wrapping around you… This outfit exposes a lot of skin, hmmm?"
It turns out that Hinata could blush really well. Actually everyone had discovered that about her years ago. But still, she took on a bit of a crazed smile as she thought it over.
Spinning scenarios like that was no challenge for me. I had about a thousand years of thinking them up, only involving me and Sasuke. Still, it did the trick.
"Oooooh," she finally decided. "Deal! If you survive. I'll give you fifteen seconds. Go!"
Whaddya know. Hinata has the same drives simmering inside her that any other girl possesses. Laughing like a maniac, I leapt off, zooming past Lee and shouting, "Catch me if you can!"
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Ranma-me loved it, Sakura-me loved it, and I expect probably every shinobi that's ever lived has loved it. The sheer exhilaration of leaping from branch to branch, soaring through the air propelled by your own muscles, that has got to be one of the best things in the world about being a shinobi. It takes only the tiniest burst of chakra to cause muscles to kick off like catapults. Likewise, landing and shooting off in a new direction powered half by native strength, and half by the near-magic of chakra.
Except that some of us, Lee and me, couldn't use our chakra like that. Lee just didn't have the stuff, and if I tried to use it, I'd blow up my legs. So Lee managed through sheer unbelievable muscle power, while I was making do with the combination of muscles plus ki. Only, I wasn't up to matching Lee yet. And Hinata was as fast as Lee, because she had chakra. So I wasn't just outclassed once, I was outclassed twice.
Well, the exercise was meant to push me. Between the excitement of the race and the fear of getting slashed open with a kunai, I was at the very edge of what I could accomplish. My mind was operating on the instinctive level. And more often than not, I found my moves to be ever so slightly … feline.
I'd been happy to discover that I hadn't inherited Ranma's truly gruesome phobia. In fact, looking back I found that I'd been able to remember the events and actions that had occurred under the influence of the neko-ken. For Ranma, it had been an astonishingly effective fighting style, with invincible ki claws, and the agility of a cat. Unfortunately, it had also included the brains of a cat, meaning that the "killer fighter" could be distracted by a ball of yarn or a squeaky mouse toy.
As I fled through the trees, I tried reaching for those memories and skills. I couldn't seem to call up any ki claws. But … there were memories of motion, how to move and react, how to listen to the world. It wasn't the neko-ken, but it was the memory of being a cat and moving like a cat. Exactly as it was with my memories of being Ranma, it took practice to use the skills of that ancient self, but with repetition they became easier.
I didn't want to move entirely like a cat. Most of Ranma's moves were fabulous. And in a few places, the style we used in Konoha was better. And some places, the different approach that a cat used was smoother, or more fluid, or allowed you to bring more muscles into play. Or it just provided an unexpected twist.
So, as I moved, there were awkward moments but there were also periods – longer and longer, as the chase continued – where I was able to achieve something of a fusion between the three styles. Konoha-style tree-travel, but with the unpredictable aerial evasions of the forgotten Anything Goes school, topped with a feline grace.
Clad as I was in my furred and spotted Tarzan-Girl outfit, I would have felt like hot stuff, if it wasn't for the fact that Lee and Hinata kept crisscrossing my path, slicing across me with their kunai. I didn't have the strength or speed to match either of them yet, not without using chakra. But I was beginning to beat them on sheer elegance.
I shot forward from one branch, soaring through mid-air on my way to my next perch. Suddenly, there was a thunk to my left as Hinata rebounded off a trunk, shooting toward me with her kunai poised. I curled and spun, changing position in the air. Instead of her passing over my back, now I was above her with my claws poised above her back! I snatched the single kunai sheathed at my hip and prepared to give her such a scratch!
But then the leaves shook and branches broke as Lee came plummeting straight down through the foliage, aiming to impact us both.
I twisted again, Kicking off Hinata's back and shooting away from Lee's drop. I reached a different branch, then took a triple-ricochet, attempting to foil my pursuers. But they had speed on me. As soon as my path began to bend toward my destination again, they converged on me once more – this time with Lee leading the attack.
And so we made our way deeper into the forest – kunai flashing, parrying, sometimes leaving a long scratch (usually on me) – as we bounced like pinballs through high branches of the forest, nearly twenty meters above the ground.
My moves and style finally began to come together as we reached the obelisk in the ancient stone temple. I bounced off that, yelling, "TAG! I get a 60-second head start!"
My moves had come together, but now my muscles were starting to feel the burn, as the weights at my wrists and ankles began to take their toll. I needed every bit of that head-start, as I scrambled into a sprint. This time, when they caught up with me, they were twice as vicious.
To be fair, both of them were going for scratches – usually only a couple of millimeters deep. And they seemed to have agreed that my skimpy outfit was off limits. Which was fine for modesty, but I'd left an awful lot of skin exposed. And while the scratches didn't bleed that much, it adds up after a while.
So it was with enormous relief that I finally saw the lake come into view.
"I win!" I yelled, launching into a long, horizontal high-dive from the nearest treetop.
"Not yet!" Lee called, flinging nearly a dozen rapid-fire shuriken at me.
Go figure, I didn't know the boy had it in him.
I flipped and rolled, now facing backward. Just to show off, I plucked one of the shuriken out of the air as it whizzed past. I was going to return it, but instead I aimed to block the small squadron of kunai that Hinata flung my way. I knocked the first out of the air, then rolled aside to let the rest miss, then flipped around for a head-first entry into the lake.
By the time I'd swum to the far side, my two companions were waiting. Hinata had just run across the top of the lake – the cheater!
I could barely drag myself out of the water. I looked like I'd been swimming through thorn bushes, and my arms and legs felt like noodles.
"NOW we have lunch!" Hinata insisted.
"One… minute…" I gasped. "I'm close… I can feel it."
"What you're feeling is the last stages of exhaustion," Lee told me. "You can barely move. This is no time for speed training."
"Twenty minute rest," I begged. "Then we try it. I think I can do it!"
Hinata grumbled, but went to work on the stew.
"Thirty minutes," Lee insisted, "and I rub down your arms and legs, first."
"Deal." I collapsed back into a camp chair, with all the grace of overcooked udon.
Lee started with my arms first, so I'd have the strength to hold my bowl and eat. I sat there and accepted his devotion, trying not to acknowledge that it was highly erotic, the way his incredibly powerful hands manipulated my loose and helpless muscles. Fortunately, I'd anticipated this, and sewn small shields of stiff plastic into the cups of my top this time. It was a little less comfortable, and a lot less embarrassing.
Even Hinata couldn't complain about the attention I was receiving right now – it really was part of the training. So I lay there like a lump while he worked his magic fingers into my arms, then legs, massaging in the thick green good of the ki conditioning salve. I recorded it all as prime material for my fantasies later.
Then, trembling but mobile, I headed for the center of the quarry, where the speed training ground was set up. I was still clad in my "jungle sexy" outfit. When I pulled off the fur-covered wrist and ankle bands I felt so light it was like I was floating.
"Are you sure about this?" Lee asked. "You're trembling."
I was. It was like an extremely bad case of shivers. It was half exhaustion, and half that sort of racehorse anticipation just before the race.
"I'm ready," I insisted. "It feels right, you know? I'm right on the edge of doing it!"
My two friends both nodded. We'd all been there.
I moved into the center. "Begin!"
Lee picked up a beehive and chucked it at me. Then he started the rock cannon. Hinata did the same.
I was starting to get stung, but I was deflecting all the rocks, even those coming in from behind me. I was moving fast, I think faster than I had this morning. Just not fast enough!
I focused harder. My arms, legs, my entire body was glowing with energy. It wasn't visible on the outside, but I could feel it.
Then I messed up. Just once.
WHACK!
A rock nailed me in the back of the head. I raised my hands to the wound, taking a dozen stings in the time that took. For a moment, everything wavered. I could barely see the two other rocks approaching from opposite directions. This was going to hurt…
And suddenly, there was another rock there. Rock Lee, appearing like magic in front of me. He backfisted the first stone, and it shattered to dust. The other slammed into the back of his head with a sickening CRACK.
He, too, wavered for a moment. The hornets noticed, and began their descent.
There had to be three hundred hornets. It was an angry cloud. Stopping them with your hands was insane – ludicrous. Lee was about to be covered in blisters.
And just like that, it was there. Like a light turning on, I felt my arms and knew I could do it. I reached up… and my arms blurred!
The blur lasted just a moment until my eyes caught up, too. My arms shot out, (smack, smack) swatting a pair of hornets aside. There was a small cluster hanging … there. I gave a smack smack smack, hitting each insect just hard enough to flick it a dozen meters away – broken and dead. Power is unimportant when fighting insects, only speed and precision matter. Using both hands now, I flicked, plucked, swatted, and slapped. In much less than a second, the air around Lee was clear. As an almost idle afterthought, I reached up to deflect the incoming rock, tapping it sideways to miss us both.
Lee's eyes bulged even larger than normal. "W-w-WOW! That was incredible!"
I smiled in pure joy. "I finally got it! And now… no more ki."
I collapsed slowly enough that Lee was able to catch me.
oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
I rode Lee's back to get back home. Perhaps I pushed myself a little too far. I didn't even have enough energy to change out of my skimpy outfit. I did not want to face Mom while being almost too weak to stand, and wearing a fur bikini.
Hinata finally took mercy on me and leant me a mission cloak. I made a note to carry one from now on in a hidden weapons pocket. I had enough strength to use that.
I used the key to let myself into the front door. There was no way I could leap up to my window. I have never been more exhausted in my life, and seldom more pleased with myself.
Sure enough, Mom was waiting up for me.
Her stern expression betrayed nothing. "Good training session?"
I nodded. "Really good. I had a breakthrough."
"Wonderful."
The tone was flat, nearly sarcastic. She was very unhappy.
"So maybe you can justify taking a little time off. Enough time to tell me about this 'Haruno Clan' that I don't recall being a part of."
Oh dear.
END OF CHAPTER 6
Next chapter: Sakura vs. Neji!
